Omegavegeta wrote:
Tirith wrote:
Certainly not "a lot" of my success being contributed to my sex/race instead of earning it through work, as Omegavegeta stated..
You're ancestors benefited from being white. They were probably legal immigrants to this country during a time period when immigrants of other ethnicities were restricted. They also chose to come here, and once here didn't have to relocate unwillingly. They lived on land that used to belong to other people, as you do currently. Your ancestors may have even been given their land from the federal government & had it subsidized/supported too. Your parents may have, and your grandparents probably went to racially segregated schools. Your grandparents worked jobs that people of color were excluded or black-balled from doing & could vote without having to worry about poll taxes, literacy tests, or other forms of discrimination. Your grandparents didn't have to worry about using subpar facilities because of their color. Your parents didn't need to use their race as a factor in where they lived or went to school & neither do you.
It's a good thing no one's painting with a massive racial stereotype brush here. Cause that would just be crazy!
Seriously? You honestly think that's even remotely close to the typical experience of any group in America? Cause all those Irish immigrants just had it easy peasy once they arrived here in the US. Same with the Italians, the Polish, Greeks, etc. Given land? Where the hell did you learn history?
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You probably live in a neighborhood that people of color were once discriminated against living in. You most definitely live somewhere where people of color are still discriminated against when applying for housing and loans. You probably still live in a school district that spends more money on schools that mostly white kids go too. Kids of color in those schools are disciplined more than their white counterparts, are more likely to be tracked into "nonacademic" programs, & read about "heroes" whom owned their ancestors. You were encouraged to go to college by your teachers, parents, tutors, and advisers. You're going to college & received loans. You can always vote for candidates that reflect your race. You live somewhere that has better police, fire, & emt services than where people of color live. Most of what you own is made by woman & children of people of color here & abroad.
Here's the problem though. You're conflating a history of actual legal conditions which negatively impacted certain ethnic groups with resulting outcomes *today*. But those really are two different things. It's what I was trying to explain to you last week, but you didn't get it (or choose not to).
The biggest determinant of success in the US is not skin color but the economic condition of one's parents. Period. The better off your parents, the better off you will be statistically. It's far and away the 800lb gorilla in terms of socio-economic outcomes. The reason the statistics indicate that there's an advantage to being white is because right now
whites are statistically more likely to be better off economically. Thus, the average white kid will do better than the average black kid. But it's a mistake to get lost in the statistics without paying attention to what causes those statistics to be. It's not "being white" which causes that resulting statistical difference. It's the economic condition of your parents. We know this because black kids adopted into middle class white families do similarly well to white kids raised in the same conditions. Wealthy black families children do similarly well to wealthy white kids. It's not the race that's affecting the outcome. It's the starting condition.
The problem is that the starting condition can't be changed via government action. That's what the left has been trying for the last 40+ years, and it really hasn't worked. And the reason is that it's not the amount of dollars, or the house you live in, or the cars you drive that make the difference. It's what your parents teach you and show you as you grow up. Parents who are well off financially will tend to also be organized, skilled, with a good work ethic, and they pass those things on to their children. No amount of giving someone money, housing, transportation, and food, will have the same effect.
IMO, racially targeted AA actually *hurts* the groups they are targeted at. If we accept that it's the traits of success passed on to children, and not just the result of success that affects the child's own success, then by artificially enabling success in cases where success would not otherwise have occurred, we're just faking out the stats. We're making someone look like they're in a similar economic state, but they are not (or would not be) without the AA intervention. Thus, any AA which grants benefits solely because of someone's skin color is a bad idea. It's a bad idea first because it's unfair to everyone else. But it's also a bad idea because it doesn't really help the recipient much.
Let everyone compete on an equal playing field. That way, those who succeed will do so because they have adopted and employed the skills and habits of success and will be more likely to pass those on to their children. They in turn will be an example of how one can succeed without worrying about race. Do this for a few generations, and no one will consider race anymore and you'll see the racial group outcomes become more equal. Continue trying to game the stats after the fact and you just perpetuate the very problem you claim to be trying to solve.
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You don't need to think about race and racism everyday. You can choose when and where you want to respond to it.
I think obsessing about race is the wrong approach though. It makes every problem appear to be a racial problem and blinds you to other much better solutions.
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A lot of what you have is because you're white, dude. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.
I don't think it's about hurting anyone's feelings. It's about doing what is right.